St. John’s Episcopal Church, just north of the White House off of Lafayette Square, has been visited by every president since James Madison (41 Presidents). Some of them have worshipped there. It’s a part of our nation’s fabric — culturally, religiously and historically.
Maybe that’s what the catch was: the old, ossified, white supremacist America being torched as a symbolic gesture. Maybe that’s why rioters lit the basement aflame and defaced the exterior of the church on Sunday. That’ll pave the way for … something.
But therein lay the problem: By doing that, they were also attacking a civil rights landmark.